The four painters who came to be known as the Scottish Colourists (see cat. 73) were the most ambitious and gifted Scots artists of their generation: Samuel John Peploe, John Duncan Fergusson, George Leslie Hunter and Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell. At the beginning of the twentieth century studying in Paris and looking to the example of French painting was the norm for young Scottish artists. Cadell trained in Paris from 1898 to 1903 and lived in Munich for several years before returning to his native Edinburgh.

 The early works of the Scottish Colourists demonstrate their interest in James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Édouard Manet and the formal and colouristic developments that took place in Paris in the wake of the Post-Impressionists Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. Moreover, Peploe, Fergusson and Cadell absorbed the influences of Fauvism and Cubism and were particularly impelled by Henri Matisse’s experimental use of colour.

This self-portrait by Cadell amounts almost to an artistic manifesto on his part. The whole work was rapidly and thinly painted so that the texture and tone of the neutral ground is visible, creating a foil for the pulses of colour on the still life, palette and face. In a bravura and painterly performance, Cadell declares his personal allegiance to Manet and Whistler and – through an act of homage to these great moderns – places himself in the line of descent within the great European painterly tradition, which includes Titian, Diego Velázquez and Frans Hals.

The significance of the year the portrait was most likely painted should be emphasised. Cadell volunteered for active service immediately after war was declared in 1914. He represents himself, first and foremost, as an artist – albeit one who carries his palette on his arm like a shield and whose brushes held in his right hand might suggest something more martial, like a spear or rifle. It is perhaps no coincidence that he is dressed in a trench coat. He stands in front of one of his own richly coloured pictures – perhaps indicating that should he not survive the war there was already a substantial body of work that would secure him a kind of immortality. He clenches his pipe firmly between his teeth and his gaze is steady. The portrait is painted with an élan and freedom of handling that puts it with other figure compositions at the peak of his achievement in his pre-war period.

This text was first published in Facing the World: Self Portraits from Rembrandt to Ai Weiwei (2016)